Antarctic Film Maker and Director of Award-winning Documentary “Antarctica”

Home Country: New Zealand

Anthony Powell has been working in Antarctica with his wife Christine for many years. After over 10 years (9 winters) of filming, his documentary "Antarctica: A Year on Ice" is now complete. For the first time, audiences get to experience the full year-round experience of life in Antarctica. It is currently screening at festivals around the world, winning multiple awards.

“Do what is important to you. Have faith in yourself and make that leap of faith. You need to be willing to step outside the box, do something different, beyond conventional. You need to dedicate the time and patience; it takes 5 months to film what appears 9 seconds on film.”

* Powell worked for many years as a Communications Tech for Telecom New Zealand, before picking up his first job in Antarctica as the Communications Tech for New Zealand's Scott Base in 1998. Since then he has continued to work at both Scott Base, and McMurdo Station, the US base run by the National Science Foundation.

* He has now spent over 100 months in Antarctica, including 9 winters, when the bases are cut off from the rest of the world for 6 months of the year, and endure months of unending darkness. He even got married there. He married an American lass from Orange County California (Christine) who was working at McMurdo Station while he was still working at Scott Base in the winter of 2003.

* Powell has recently finished the award-winning feature length film "Antarctica: A Year on Ice". It is a visually stunning chronicle of what it is like to live in Antarctica for a full year, including the never before seen deep Antarctic winter, completely isolated from the rest of the world, while enduring months of unending darkness, in the coldest place on Earth.

* Powell had to design and build many of the camera systems himself, and to invent new filming techniques, in order to film in the extreme cold of the Antarctic winter. He has worn out and broken many cameras taking the millions of photos that make up time-lapse image sequences that feature as a major part of the film. The longest time-lapse sequence in the film took almost 5 months to film, which involved hiking out into the ice pressure ridges near Scott Base every 3 days to swap out the camera batteries and memory cards.

* Powell has had his footage appear in numerous museums, TV shows, films, and magazines, including New York Natural History Museum, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and was most recently featured in BBC's Frozen Planet series. The Frozen Planet team won an Emmy Award for photography. He also received the National Science Foundation Artists and Writers Award, which allowed him to spend a summer season filming full-time in Antarctica.

* Awards received:
Winner: Grand Jury Selection, Best Film, Laughlin International Film Festival
Winner: Peoples Choice, Best Film, Scottsdale International Film Festival
Winner: Best Documentary Cinematography, New Zealand Film Awards
Winner: Best Cinematography, Indie Fest USA
Winner: Best Cinematography, Frozen Film Festival
Winner: Best Documentary, Bel-Air Film Festival
Winner: Best Documentary, Twin Cities Film Festival
Winner: Best Documentary, Orlando Film Festival
Winner: Best Documentary, Calgary International Film Festival
Winner: Best Documentary, Indie Fest USA
Winner: Best Documentary, Eugene International Film Festival
Winner: Best Documentary, Red Dirt Film Festival
Winner: Best Documentary, Foyle Film Festival UK
Winner: Best Documentary, Irvine International Film Festival
Winner: Best Documentary, Louisville Festival of Film
Winner: Best Documentary, Prescott Film Festival
Winner: Discovery Award, Calgary International Film Festival
Winner: Best Emerging Film Maker, Prescott Film Festival
Winner: One In a Million Award, Sun Valley Film Festival
Winner: Best Adventure Reel, Breckenridge Film Festival
Winner: Best Environmental Film, Frozen Film Festival
Best Cinematography, Indie Fest USA, California
Best Documentary Cinematography, New Zealand Film Awards
Top 10 Films of 2013 New Zealand Herald, Dominion Post, and Ruthless Reviews
Best Kiwi Film 2013 Stuff.co.nz
Best Films of 2013 Sunday Star-Times
Best Film 2013 Slightly Intrepid

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